


We All Need Sweets Every Now and Then

by downintheflames



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-15 03:56:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11797875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downintheflames/pseuds/downintheflames
Summary: A storm rumbled towards the team as they ran laps on the lacrosse field. Wymack had proclaimed they needed to breathe real air to get all their bullshit out of their system. Allison had complained about the humidity ruining her hair before she stopped to watch the clouds trip over themselves in the sky.Renee liked to think that in another life, Allison would have been a storm chaser. She was staring at the sky in awe while Renee stared at her.Andrew cleared his throat loudly. Neil nudged him softly then silently assured her that she should continue on - that the vulnerability was a good thing. Nicky rambled on to no one in particular about how one time when he was in Germany with Eric... Kevin slid his phone out of his pocket and took a picture of the clouds so he could look up exactly what kind they were when they returned to the dorms. Aaron grumbled about how stupid running laps outdoors was. Dan barked at them to get a move on - that they wouldn't stop unless there was lightning. Matt immediately picked up his pace with Allison following behind him.Renee shook herself out of her thoughts. Allison was her best friend and nothing more. Andrew needed to stop acting like her saying that was such a joke.





	We All Need Sweets Every Now and Then

We All Need Sweets Every Now and Then

Chapter One

Strawberry Conditioner

 

Renee shouldered open the door to the roof without finesse. Her breaths came in short bursts and her hands shook. The moon was tucked under a blanket of clouds and the only light on the roof came from Andrew’s lighter as he lit a cigarette. She ambled over to him and plopped next to him heavily. He, as expected, didn’t acknowledge her presence. She had searched out Andrew for that exact reason. There were some nightmares that she couldn’t put on her calm and composed outlook atop of. Her skin felt dirty and pulled too tight, like there was nineteen-year-old grime coating it. On nights like these, she couldn’t put her cross on or smile softly or be gentle. Her knuckles missed the thin layer of blood on them, her knees called out to slam into someone’s head, and her fingers ached for her knives. Nights like these, all her progress was left in her sheets while she stumbled in the cold night air hoping for a fight but praying for peace.

Andrew wordlessly passed her a cigarette and she placed it between her teeth. He didn’t hand her the lighter, simply left it on the bricks of the rooftop between them. Renee stared at it as she weighed whether smoke in her lungs would bring more sickening memories back or keep them at bay. She didn’t understand her triggers. They were a jigsaw puzzle she couldn’t solve with rapidly changing pieces. The second she learned one, it would slip away.

In November, she had slid a cigarette between her lips and ended up with her head between her knees with Andrew’s heavy hand on the back of her neck and his quiet demands that she “just fucking breathe”. The year prior, Matt had tugged on her elbow to get her attention. The others were blissfully unaware but Andrew had seen her body tense under Matt’s hand. He had pushed Nicky into Matt and the resulting hissy fit Nicky threw was loud enough to ground Renee in the present. Renee still woke up covered in sweat and silently thanked God again that Andrew had taken her knives. A year later and Renee was still certain she would have buried one of her knives in Matt’s chest that night.

“I could have killed Matt,” Renee whispered, the cigarette bounced as her lips moved around it.

“Yes,” Andrew replied. Renee shook her head violently as tears sprang to her eyes. Her chest shuddered as she tried to breathe. “But you didn’t.”

“Because you stopped me,” Renee sobbed. “They’re mine to protect but when it came down to it, you had to save them from me.”

“I pushed an idiot into another idiot,” Andrew grumbled. “I’d hardly call that heroism.”

“You knew what you were doing,” Renee said simply. She picked up the lighter and lit the cigarette. The memories of the night she had murdered her abuser bled into her vision. She had lit a cigarette after she had sliced him open and left him for dead. She had blood on her hands when she held the lighter to her lips. She hadn’t felt any remorse. She still felt no remorse.

Andrew took the lighter from between her still fingers so he could light another cigarette. His phone lit up next to his thigh and Renee saw a simple “N” as the contact name.

“Do you ever get confused if its Neil or Nicky texting?” she asked. Andrew looked at her with narrowed eyes before putting the phone on his other side. “I didn’t read the message, I was just curious.”

“No,” Andrew replied.

Renee smiled to herself as she took her phone out of her pocket. She scrolled to her text conversation with Allison, then turned the phone to show Andrew that Allison was saved in Renee’s contacts as nothing but her first initial as well. Andrew rolled his eyes as he understood. “Nice sentiment.”

“It’s so she’s the first name in my contact list.”

“She seems to be the first on a lot of your lists,” Andrew said as he inhaled deeply from his cigarette.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Renee asked but he only shrugged as he exhaled the smoke into the air over their heads. “She doesn’t mean anything more than anyone else, you know that.”

Andrew leaned his head back and simply starred at her. Renee dug a finger into his cheek and pushed his face away.

“I’ve heard that somewhere before,” Andrew teased in his monotone way.

“You said Neil was nothing,” Renee clarified with her hand extended towards Andrew, as if she was offering him a knowledge nugget. “I’m saying that she means no more than anyone else. She doesn’t mean more to me than say Dan or Matt or Kevin.”

Andrew once again said nothing but he shook his head as he stared ahead.

“I mean it,” Renee half yelled in reply but smiled despite herself. “Why are we even talking about this? This is definitely not what I came up here for.”

“And yet,” Andrew said, slowly, “you already feel better after having kind-of discussed her.”

“I,” Renee starts just as slow, “do not. I, simply, am happy to have heard you say so many words in one sitting. Is this a record?”

“Goodbye,” Andrew said as he flicked his cigarette over the side of the roof. “I’m going to bed.”

Andrew let the door slam behind him and Renee was once again left alone. Much as she wanted to deny it, she did feel better just after vaguely discussing Allison. Not because the thought of Allison made her any happier than any thought of any one of her dear friends would. Allison was a loud, hot tempered, terror, and complete intoxication of a person. She was impossible to predict and would snap your neck for attempting to nail her down. She was Renee’s best friend and that was it.

Renee lifted her hand to her mouth and pushed the corners of her smile down. She couldn’t remember what had happened in the nightmare that had woken her no more than an hour prior.

The door slammed once again and Renee looked back to see Allison walking towards her. She was wearing an oversized t-shirt and her hair was sleep-ruffled. She sat next to Renee on the edge of the roof and Renee stared out into the darkness rather than look at her.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Allison asked, her voice gruff from sleep.

“Yeah,” Renee replied. She hated how small her voice sounded. Andrew had cheered her up but she felt hollow again already.

“You’re safe,” Allison said simply before she placed her head on Renee’s shoulder. “I’ll stay up here with you but I’m just gonna take a little nap on you.”

Renee smiled softly as she felt Allison fall asleep. Allison’s hair tickled her neck but she didn’t dare move and wake Allison. Renee had nightmares, that was no secret. The whole team knew there were shadows in her past that she couldn’t shake. But Allison had nightmares just as often as Renee, but she was practiced in the art of covering it up. No emotion other than picture perfect happiness was tolerated in her family. The most Allison had ever dropped in her composure in front of the team was after Seth was murdered.

Renee often found herself thinking about Seth. He was always burning. He didn’t do anything calmly and he had never learned how to stop or slow down. Allison loved that about him. She said that there was never an eye in the storm, that the wind was always tearing the siding off houses, that it was exhilarating. Renee liked to think that in another life, Allison would have been a storm chaser. She was always staring at the sky in awe while Renee was staring at her.

Allison never talked about Seth anymore but Renee knew when he crossed Allison’s mind. Sometimes she would stare at empty chairs like she was waiting for Seth to sit down and start calling Kevin an idiot. Too many times, Renee found Allison hanging back as they left locker rooms.

“Who are you waiting for?” Renee would ask. Allison would laugh bitterly before turning away and following the team out to the bus.

Some mornings, Allison would stop in front of Matt’s door and wait for a moment before remembering Seth wasn’t coming out. Renee didn’t know how to help or how to reach Allison on those days. She wasn’t sure if Allison wanted to be reached either. Renee wanted to comfort, to press her hands against the wounds and heal. But helping was such a profound act of vulnerability and sometimes Renee was just too afraid. But on nights like this, when Allison’s breath brushed against Renee’s collarbone, Renee thought that maybe, just maybe, she could reach out.

Allison shifted and her head fell a small centimeter.

“Jesus shit,” she mumbled as she sat straight again. “Are we done contemplating, Nae? Can we go to bed? Think of the blankets and the pillows and how fucking awful it’s going to be when your alarm goes off in a few hours.” She climbed to her feet and stretched while she still grumbled on. “Honestly, fuck Wymack. It’s the goddamn summer. Practices do not have to start so early.”

“Yeah,” Renee replied softly. “We can go inside.”

She decided she wasn’t going to tell Andrew that she let Allison call her Nae. She also won’t tell him that her skin smelled like Allison’s conditioner as she fell asleep in her own bed.

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my newest fic! This is going to follow the team in the year following the end of the series! 
> 
> Fic named and very inspired by Darren Criss's song Don't You.
> 
> I haven't planned my update schedule yet, it really depends on the reaction this introductory chapter gets! Okay that's all I have to say right now.
> 
> A kudo is a hug and a comment is a kiss! So hugs and kisses!
> 
> Bye,  
> C


End file.
